Throughout the years, Pat Garrity has remained one of the Notre Dame men's basketball program's most exemplary scholar-athletes. Raised in Monument, Colo., he was a second-team All-America pick by the Associated Press and The Sporting News, and was a third-team pick by Basketball Weekly. Garrity was also a two-time pick to the GTE/CoSIDA Academic All-America® Team, and was the 1998 Academic All-America® Team Member of the Year for men's basketball.

Garrity's other noteworthy awards include being a two-time consensus all-BIG EAST Conference first-team pick in 1997 & '98, and he was named the 1997 BIG EAST player of the year. He was also named the 1998 BIG EAST Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and received post-graduate scholarships from the NCAA and NACDA (National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics). He was the 1997-98 BIG EAST Preseason Player of the Year, and a preseason first-team all-BIG EAST choice. Garrity was one of five national player-of-the-year candidates by Street and Smith's, and a preseason first-team All-American by Inside Sports. He also received both the Notre Dame Monogram Club Team MVP award and the Notre Dame Club of St. Joseph Valley Rockne Student-Athlete Award following his sophomore, junior, and senior seasons.

During his collegiate career, Garrity scored 2,085 points and had 776 rebounds. He ranks fifth on the Notre Dame career scoring list, and ninth with an 18.8-ppg. career scoring average. Garrity also is fourth in program history for career field goals made, and sixth all-time in field goals attempted (1,534). He scored in double figures in his final 46 games, and had double-digit outputs in 100 of his 111 career games, all of which he started. Garrity played a total of 3,649 minutes, averaging 32.8 minutes per game. He finished his BIG EAST career with 1,107 points and 100 three-point field goals in conference play.

Garrity graduated from Notre Dame in 1998 with a bachelor's degree in science/pre-professional studies. Subsequently, he was selected in the first round (19th overall) of the 1998 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks; he was later traded to the Dallas Mavericks and then the Phoenix Suns on that same draft night. Garrity went on to play 10 seasons in the NBA, the first in Phoenix and the final nine (1999-2008) with the Orlando Magic, averaging 7.3 points per game. He also served on the NBA Players Association Executive Committee from 2000-08, first as the group's secretary, and later as its treasurer.